OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Experimental Verification and Analysis of Dynamic Loop Scheduling in Scientific Applications
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2018
Year: 2018

Scientific applications are often irregular and characterized by large computationally-intensive parallel loops. Dynamic loop scheduling (DLS) techniques improve the performance of computationally-intensive scientific applications via load balancing of their execution on high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Identifying the most suitable choices of data distribution strategies, system sizes, and DLS techniques which improve the performance of a given application, requires intensive assessment and a large number of exploratory native experiments (using real applications on real systems), which may not always be feasible or practical due to associated time and costs. In such cases, simulative experiments are more appropriate for studying the performance of applications. This motivates the question of How realistic are the simulations of executions of scientific applications using DLS on HPC platforms? In the present work, a methodology is devised to answer this question. It involves the experimental verification and analysis of the performance of DLS in scientific applications. The proposed methodology is employed for a computer vision application executing using four DLS techniques on two different HPC plat- forms, both via native and simulative experiments. The evaluation and analysis of the native and simulative results indicate that the accuracy of the simulative experiments is strongly influenced by the approach used to extract the computational effort of the application (FLOP- or time-based), the choice of application model representation into simulation (data or task parallel), and the available HPC subsystem models in the simulator (multi-core CPUs, memory hierarchy, and network topology). The minimum and the maximum percent errors achieved between the native and the simulative experiments are 0.95% and 8.03%, respectively.
Generalizing the Hypergraph Laplacian via a Diffusion Process with Mediators
Venue: arXiv cs.DM 2018
Year: 2018

In a recent breakthrough STOC~2015 paper, a continuous diffusion process was considered on hypergraphs (which has been refined in a recent JACM 2018 paper) to define a Laplacian operator, whose spectral properties satisfy the celebrated Cheeger's inequality. However, one peculiar aspect of this diffusion process is that each hyperedge directs flow only from vertices with the maximum density to those with the minimum density, while ignoring vertices having strict in-beween densities. In this work, we consider a generalized diffusion process, in which vertices in a hyperedge can act as mediators to receive flow from vertices with maximum density and deliver flow to those with minimum density. We show that the resulting Laplacian operator still has a second eigenvalue satsifying the Cheeger's inequality. Our generalized diffusion model shows that there is a family of operators whose spectral properties are related to hypergraph conductance, and provides a powerful tool to enhance the development of spectral hypergraph theory. Moreover, since every vertex can participate in the new diffusion model at every instant, this can potentially have wider practical applications.
Optimal Neural Network Feature Selection for Spatial-Temporal Forecasting
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2018
Year: 2018

In this paper, we show empirical evidence on how to construct the optimal feature selection or input representation used by the input layer of a feedforward neural network for the propose of forecasting spatial-temporal signals. The approach is based on results from dynamical systems theory, namely the non-linear embedding theorems. We demonstrate it for a variety of spatial-temporal signals, with one spatial and one temporal dimensions, and show that the optimal input layer representation consists of a grid, with spatial/temporal lags determined by the minimum of the mutual information of the spatial/temporal signals and the number of points taken in space/time decided by the embedding dimension of the signal. We present evidence of this proposal by running a Monte Carlo simulation of several combinations of input layer feature designs and show that the one predicted by the non-linear embedding theorems seems to be optimal or close of optimal. In total we show evidence in four unrelated systems: a series of coupled Henon maps; a series of couple Ordinary Differential Equations (Lorenz-96) phenomenologically modelling atmospheric dynamics; the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, a partial differential equation used in studies of instabilities in laminar flame fronts and finally real physical data from sunspot areas in the Sun (in latitude and time) from 1874 to 2015.
Proof of spending in block-chain systems
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2018
Year: 2018

We introduce proof of spending in a block-chain system. In this system the probability for a node to create a legal block is proportional to the total amount of coins it has spent in history.
Counting Subwords and Regular Languages
Venue: arXiv cs.FL 2018
Year: 2018

Let $x$ and $y$ be words. We consider the languages whose words $z$ are those for which the numbers of occurrences of $x$ and $y$, as subwords of $z$, are the same (resp., the number of $x$'s is less than the number of $y$'s, resp., is less than or equal). We give a necessary and sufficient condition on $x$ and $y$ for these languages to be regular, and we show how to check this condition efficiently.
Spatial Covariance Estimation for Millimeter Wave Hybrid Systems using Out-of-Band Information
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2018
Year: 2018

In high mobility applications of millimeter wave (mmWave) communications, e.g., vehicle-to-everything communication and next-generation cellular communication, frequent link configuration can be a source of significant overhead. We use the sub-6 GHz channel covariance as an out-of-band side information for mmWave link configuration. Assuming: (i) a fully digital architecture at sub-6 GHz; and (ii) a hybrid analog-digital architecture at mmWave, we propose an out-of-band covariance translation approach and an out-of-band aided compressed covariance estimation approach. For covariance translation, we estimate the parameters of sub-6 GHz covariance and use them in theoretical expressions of covariance matrices to predict the mmWave covariance. For out-of-band aided covariance estimation, we use weighted sparse signal recovery to incorporate out-of-band information in compressed covariance estimation. The out-of-band covariance translation eliminates the in-band training completely, whereas out-of-band aided covariance estimation relies on in-band as well as out-of-band training. We also analyze the loss in the signal-to-noise ratio due to an imperfect estimate of the covariance. The simulation results show that the proposed covariance estimation strategies can reduce the training overhead compared to the in-band only covariance estimation.
Decoupling Respiratory and Angular Variation in Rotational X-ray Scans Using a Prior Bilinear Model
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

Data-driven respiratory signal extraction from rotational X-ray scans is a challenge as angular effects overlap with respiration-induced change in the scene. In this paper, we use the linearity of the X-ray transform to propose a bilinear model based on a prior 4D scan to separate angular and respiratory variation. The bilinear estimation process is supported by a B-spline interpolation using prior knowledge about the trajectory angle. Consequently, extraction of respiratory features simplifies to a linear problem. Though the need for a prior 4D CT seems steep, our proposed use-case of driving a respiratory motion model in radiation therapy usually meets this requirement. We evaluate on DRRs of 5 patient 4D CTs in a leave-one-phase-out manner and achieve a mean estimation error of 3.01 % in the gray values for unseen viewing angles. We further demonstrate suitability of the extracted weights to drive a motion model for treatments with a continuously rotating gantry.
Deep learning improved by biological activation functions
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2018
Year: 2018

`Biologically inspired' activation functions, such as the logistic sigmoid, have been instrumental in the historical advancement of machine learning. However in the field of deep learning, they have been largely displaced by rectified linear units (ReLU) or similar functions, such as its exponential linear unit (ELU) variant, to mitigate the effects of vanishing gradients associated with error back-propagation. The logistic sigmoid however does not represent the true input-output relation in neuronal cells under physiological conditions. Here, bionodal root unit (BRU) activation functions are introduced, exhibiting input-output non-linearities that are substantially more biologically plausible since their functional form is based on known biophysical properties of neuronal cells. In order to evaluate the learning performance of BRU activations, deep networks are constructed with identical architectures except differing in their transfer functions (ReLU, ELU, and BRU). Multilayer perceptrons, stacked auto-encoders, and convolutional networks are used to test supervised and unsupervised learning based on the MNIST and CIFAR-10/100 datasets. Comparisons of learning performance, quantified using loss and error measurements, demonstrate that bionodal networks both train faster than their ReLU and ELU counterparts and result in the best generalised models even in the absence of formal regularisation. These results therefore suggest that revisiting the detailed properties of biological neurones and their circuitry might prove invaluable in the field of deep learning for the future.
A blind robust watermarking method based on Arnold Cat map and amplified pseudo-noise strings with weak correlation
Venue: arXiv cs.MM 2018
Year: 2018

In this paper, a robust and blind watermarking method is proposed, which is highly resistant to the common image watermarking attacks, such as noises, compression, and image quality enhancement processing. In this method, Arnold Cat map is used as a pre-processing on the host image, which increases the security and imperceptibility of embedding watermark bits with a strong gain factor. Moreover, two pseudo-noise strings with weak correlation are used as the symbol of each 0 or 1 bit of the watermark, which increases the accuracy in detecting the state of watermark bits at extraction phase in comparison to using two random pseudo-noise strings. In this method, to increase the robustness and further imperceptibility of the embedding, the Arnold Cat mapped image is subjected to non-overlapping blocking, and then the high frequency coefficients of the approximation sub-band of the FDCuT transform are used as the embedding location for each block. Comparison of the proposed method with recent robust methods under the same experimental conditions indicates the superiority of the proposed method.
BomJi at SemEval-2018 Task 10: Combining Vector-, Pattern- and Graph-based Information to Identify Discriminative Attributes
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2018
Year: 2018

This paper describes BomJi, a supervised system for capturing discriminative attributes in word pairs (e.g. yellow as discriminative for banana over watermelon). The system relies on an XGB classifier trained on carefully engineered graph-, pattern- and word embedding based features. It participated in the SemEval- 2018 Task 10 on Capturing Discriminative Attributes, achieving an F1 score of 0:73 and ranking 2nd out of 26 participant systems.
LUT-Lock: A Novel LUT-based Logic Obfuscation for FPGA-Bitstream and ASIC-Hardware Protection
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2018
Year: 2018

In this work, we propose LUT-Lock, a novel Look-Up-Table-based netlist obfuscation algorithm, for protecting the intellectual property that is mapped to an FPGA bitstream or an ASIC netlist. We, first, illustrate the effectiveness of several key features that make the LUT-based obfuscation more resilient against SAT attacks and then we embed the proposed key features into our proposed LUT-Lock algorithm. We illustrates that LUT-Lock maximizes the resiliency of the LUT-based obfuscation against SAT attacks by forcing a near exponential increase in the execution time of a SAT solver with respect to the number of obfuscated gates. Hence, by adopting LUT-Lock algorithm, SAT attack execution time could be made unreasonably long by increasing the number of utilized LUTs.
Stochastic Shortest Paths and Weight-Bounded Properties in Markov Decision Processes
Venue: arXiv cs.LO 2018
Year: 2018

The paper deals with finite-state Markov decision processes (MDPs) with integer weights assigned to each state-action pair. New algorithms are presented to classify end components according to their limiting behavior with respect to the accumulated weights. These algorithms are used to provide solutions for two types of fundamental problems for integer-weighted MDPs. First, a polynomial-time algorithm for the classical stochastic shortest path problem is presented, generalizing known results for special classes of weighted MDPs. Second, qualitative probability constraints for weight-bounded (repeated) reachability conditions are addressed. Among others, it is shown that the problem to decide whether a disjunction of weight-bounded reachability conditions holds almost surely under some scheduler belongs to $\textrm{NP}\cap \textrm{coNP}$, is solvable in pseudo-polynomial time and is at least as hard as solving two-player mean-payoff games, while the corresponding problem for universal quantification over schedulers is solvable in polynomial time.
Benchmarking the Capabilities and Limitations of SAT Solvers in Defeating Obfuscation Schemes
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2018
Year: 2018

In this paper, we investigate the strength of six different SAT solvers in attacking various obfuscation schemes. Our investigation revealed that Glucose and Lingeling SAT solvers are generally suited for attacking small-to-midsize obfuscated circuits, while the MapleGlucose, if the system is not memory bound, is best suited for attacking mid-to-difficult obfuscation methods. Our experimental result indicates that when dealing with extremely large circuits and very difficult obfuscation problems, the SAT solver may be memory bound, and Lingeling, for having the most memory efficient implementation, is the best-suited solver for such problems. Additionally, our investigation revealed that SAT solver execution times may vary widely across different SAT solvers. Hence, when testing the hardness of an obfuscation method, although the increase in difficulty could be verified by one SAT solver, the pace of increase in difficulty is dependent on the choice of a SAT solver.
Using Multi Expression Programming in Software Effort Estimation
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2018
Year: 2018

Estimating the effort of software systems is an essential topic in software engineering, carrying out an estimation process reliably and accurately for a software forms a vital part of the software development phases. Many researchers have utilized different methods and techniques hopping to find solutions to this issue, such techniques include COCOMO, SEER-SEM,SLIM and others. Recently, Artificial Intelligent techniques are being utilized to solve such problems; different studies have been issued focusing on techniques such as Neural Networks NN, Genetic Algorithms GA, and Genetic Programming GP. This work uses one of the linear variations of GP, namely: Multi Expression Programming (MEP) aiming to find the equation that best estimates the effort of software. Benchmark datasets (based on previous projects) are used learning and testing. Results are compared with those obtained by GP using different fitness functions. Results show that MEP is far better in discovering effective functions for the estimation of about 6 datasets each comprising several projects.
Conditional molecular design with deep generative models
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2018
Year: 2018

Although machine learning has been successfully used to propose novel molecules that satisfy desired properties, it is still challenging to explore a large chemical space efficiently. In this paper, we present a conditional molecular design method that facilitates generating new molecules with desired properties. The proposed model, which simultaneously performs both property prediction and molecule generation, is built as a semi-supervised variational autoencoder trained on a set of existing molecules with only a partial annotation. We generate new molecules with desired properties by sampling from the generative distribution estimated by the model. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model by evaluating it on drug-like molecules. The model improves the performance of property prediction by exploiting unlabeled molecules, and efficiently generates novel molecules fulfilling various target conditions.
Types for Information Flow Control: Labeling Granularity and Semantic Models
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2018
Year: 2018

Language-based information flow control (IFC) tracks dependencies within a program using sensitivity labels and prohibits public outputs from depending on secret inputs. In particular, literature has proposed several type systems for tracking these dependencies. On one extreme, there are fine-grained type systems (like Flow Caml) that label all values individually and track dependence at the level of individual values. On the other extreme are coarse-grained type systems (like HLIO) that track dependence coarsely, by associating a single label with an entire computation context and not labeling all values individually. In this paper, we show that, despite their glaring differences, both these styles are, in fact, equally expressive. To do this, we show a semantics- and type-preserving translation from a coarse-grained type system to a fine-grained one and vice-versa. The forward translation isn't surprising, but the backward translation is: It requires a construct to arbitrarily limit the scope of a context label in the coarse-grained type system (e.g., HLIO's "toLabeled" construct). As a separate contribution, we show how to extend work on logical relation models of IFC types to higher-order state. We build such logical relations for both the fine-grained type system and the coarse-grained type system. We use these relations to prove the two type systems and our translations between them sound.
CrowdHuman: A Benchmark for Detecting Human in a Crowd
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

Human detection has witnessed impressive progress in recent years. However, the occlusion issue of detecting human in highly crowded environments is far from solved. To make matters worse, crowd scenarios are still under-represented in current human detection benchmarks. In this paper, we introduce a new dataset, called CrowdHuman, to better evaluate detectors in crowd scenarios. The CrowdHuman dataset is large, rich-annotated and contains high diversity. There are a total of $470K$ human instances from the train and validation subsets, and $~22.6$ persons per image, with various kinds of occlusions in the dataset. Each human instance is annotated with a head bounding-box, human visible-region bounding-box and human full-body bounding-box. Baseline performance of state-of-the-art detection frameworks on CrowdHuman is presented. The cross-dataset generalization results of CrowdHuman dataset demonstrate state-of-the-art performance on previous dataset including Caltech-USA, CityPersons, and Brainwash without bells and whistles. We hope our dataset will serve as a solid baseline and help promote future research in human detection tasks.
Memory-augmented Dialogue Management for Task-oriented Dialogue Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2018
Year: 2018

Dialogue management (DM) decides the next action of a dialogue system according to the current dialogue state, and thus plays a central role in task-oriented dialogue systems. Since dialogue management requires to have access to not only local utterances, but also the global semantics of the entire dialogue session, modeling the long-range history information is a critical issue. To this end, we propose a novel Memory-Augmented Dialogue management model (MAD) which employs a memory controller and two additional memory structures, i.e., a slot-value memory and an external memory. The slot-value memory tracks the dialogue state by memorizing and updating the values of semantic slots (for instance, cuisine, price, and location), and the external memory augments the representation of hidden states of traditional recurrent neural networks through storing more context information. To update the dialogue state efficiently, we also propose slot-level attention on user utterances to extract specific semantic information for each slot. Experiments show that our model can obtain state-of-the-art performance and outperforms existing baselines.
Python Framework for HP Adaptive Discontinuous Galerkin Method for Two Phase Flow in Porous Media
Venue: arXiv cs.CE 2018
Year: 2018

In this paper we present a framework for solving two phase flow problems in porous media. The discretization is based on a Discontinuous Galerkin method and includes local grid adaptivity and local choice of polynomial degree. The method is implemented using the new Python frontend Dune-FemPy to the open source framework Dune. The code used for the simulations is made available as Jupyter notebook and can be used through a Docker container. We present a number of time stepping approaches ranging from a classical IMPES method to fully coupled implicit scheme. The implementation of the discretization is very flexible allowing for test different formulations of the two phase flow model and adaptation strategies.
Gröbner Bases of Modules and Faugère's $F_4$ Algorithm in Isabelle/HOL
Venue: arXiv cs.LO 2018
Year: 2018

We present an elegant, generic and extensive formalization of Gröbner bases in Isabelle/HOL. The formalization covers all of the essentials of the theory (polynomial reduction, S-polynomials, Buchberger's algorithm, Buchberger's criteria for avoiding useless pairs), but also includes more advanced features like reduced Gröbner bases. Particular highlights are the first-time formalization of Faugère's matrix-based $F_4$ algorithm and the fact that the entire theory is formulated for modules and submodules rather than rings and ideals. All formalized algorithms can be translated into executable code operating on concrete data structures, enabling the certified computation of (reduced) Gröbner bases and syzygy modules.
Occluded object reconstruction for first responders with augmented reality glasses using conditional generative adversarial networks
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

Firefighters suffer a variety of life-threatening risks, including line-of-duty deaths, injuries, and exposures to hazardous substances. Support for reducing these risks is important. We built a partially occluded object reconstruction method on augmented reality glasses for first responders. We used a deep learning based on conditional generative adversarial networks to train associations between the various images of flammable and hazardous objects and their partially occluded counterparts. Our system then reconstructed an image of a new flammable object. Finally, the reconstructed image was superimposed on the input image to provide "transparency". The system imitates human learning about the laws of physics through experience by learning the shape of flammable objects and the flame characteristics.